whoisrodell

[whoisrodell]

#grief #poetry #art

[whoisrodell]

I can’t stop making these lately, so ima let them live here.

Been feeling the urge to archive. Archiving the experiments and findings from the laboratory of my own experience. Not really for anybody but me: my own sense of space and time and work and journey. A way structuring of my past so that it can be easily accessible to anyone who is interested—first and foremost, me. 

#poetry #art

[whoisrodell]

08/29/2023 A city is a prayer

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It seems that every generation is tasked with finding God somewhere, often in the places that have been deemed godless. 

I remember I first felt this five years ago during a trip to New York. I criss-crossed streets between the shadows of skyscrapers, all the while trying to gather up my legs to the swift pace of the city. In my moments of urban awe, I mostly felt that it should be impossible for a place like New York to exist — all these people stacked together in this tiny corner of the world, each cradled by the visible and invisible arms of metal infrastructure. 

Though New York is a constant pulse of life, I don't think we understand what New York is, at least on a spiritual basis. At one point, while I sat under the fantastic presence of a bridge, I felt that I understood. I felt that New York was, at its essence, a spiritual experiment to test if human beings could find God in the city, if we could find God in the constant flow of human faces. 

Our ancestors knew God in the changing faces of the sky. They felt divinity in the rolling fields of non-human life. They felt themselves naked, and so sought to feel themselves caressed by the cosmos. 

But most of us feel ourselves well-insulated, not only by our apartment walls, but by our inescapable closeness. A closeness that summons up happiness and fear, security and discomfort, community and alienation. 

New York, and perhaps every urban city, is a question as to whether we can find God in this closeness. This closeness is our primary habitat. It is our table, our temple, our tangled-up life that refuses to be once-and-for-all individual.

An assemblage of the organic and non-organic, a gathering of beings and things, an experimental community with an experimental faith. 

Perhaps every city is a prayer: An openness to the closeness that is always in our midst.

#new york city #spirituality #ecology

[whoisrodell]

08/28/2023: Maturity brings reminders

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Today, maturity feels annoying. 

Nothing is automatic. 

There is a life's worth of work to be done at all times. 

My life feels like a bundle of responsibilities.

Holding myself accountable is like holding a thousand grains of sand. 

Once again, I find myself trying to love life. 

Trying to love all the beauty, difficulties, and complications. 

Trying to love all of life's demands. 

Trying to love myself in incompleteness, dissatisfaction, and imperfection.

Sometimes maturity is the electric thrill of who I am becoming. 

And other times, maturity is the sobering reminder of the little thing that I am.

#maturity #spirituality #self love

[whoisrodell]

08/27/2023 Prismatic pedagogy: How astrology makes meaning for me

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As seasons cycle, as planets are imbued with different personalities, we are visited by new energies, each with their own webs of signification.

For example, the energy represented by the sign of Virgo comes bearing its own chain of interlocking significations regarding work, service, practicality, details, and value, and more. As the Sun moves between signs, we are invited to contemplate different worlds of meaning – meanings that are not foreign to us, but rather always in our midst, both consciously and unconsciously. Astrological signs represents a tradition that serves to make sense of the various realms of our lives.

Becoming more intimate with astrology has allowed me to peer behind the curtains of symbol into the dark and twisting world of significations. And it is those words that I come back to Earth with. When a friend asks me how am I doing, I do not respond in the esoteric language of symbols. I do not tell her that I am wrestling with Virgo energy. Rather, I speak to her in the language that lives behind the symbol: I tell her that I am feeling busy, that many things are calling for my attention, that I am reevaluating the usage of my resources. 

Symbols are always an invitation to become bilingual, to take on kaleidoscopic sight. Astrology deepens this ability in me, and this ability deepens my experience of the world.

The rhythms of astrology help me traverse the meaning-webs of life. Every season, every month, every day is a new curriculum. In this spinning world we are students to a prismatic pedagogy, each turn reflecting a new piercing light upon us.

#astrology #spirituality #virgo

[whoisrodell]

08/26/2023: Beginning again

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Beginning again means encountering old hang-ups and familiar obstacles. But this time, hopefully, I am new. When the inner critic arrives with his dull-edged input, I have different ears to receive him. My plans do not crumble, the blueprints do not shred, the work does not stop. 

Beginning again means a revision of my values, interests, and principles. This time around, I'm not at the blog for self-discovery and self-expression — or rather, I am, but with more nuance. This time, blogging feels like a tool to help me reallocate my time, energy, and attention. While, of course, sharing the insights and stories that have bubbled up from my life. 

Beginning again on this blog is a symbol for beginning again in the little details of my days. 

I am ready to meet all the old things in new ways. I am ready to give the world new responses and new contributions. I am ready to begin again.

I am reminded of a prayer meditation by Howard Thurman:

The old song of my spirit has wearied itself out. It has long ago been learned by my heart; It repeats itself over and over, bringing no added joy to my days or lift to my spirit. I will sing a new song. I must learn the new song for the new needs. I must fashion new words born of all the new growth of my life – of my mind – of my spirit. I must prepare for new melodies that have never been mine before, that all that is within me may lift my voice unto God. Therefore, I shall rejoice with each new day and delight my spirit in each fresh unfolding. I will sing, this day, a new song unto the Lord. (source)

I will sing a new song. A new song, which is sure to be clumsy and awkward. But it is only a new song that can bring forth new and fresh joys.

#blog #spirituality #writing #creativity

[whoisrodell]

07/09/2023: On growth & maturity

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Change has arrived. My notebook is filled up with questions about maturity. I can feel Saturn tracing its way back to me. 

I was once small. Living meant being swaddled up in someone's arms. My arms and legs could not quite reach the world, and so things were brought to me. The world responded to my cries, and my cries were always some demand for mercy.

I've grown but I am still quite small. I can hug my father without him bending and without me reaching—but I still can't crawl into the arms of a cloud, still can't splash my hands in the sky. Still quite small, and yet look at how much I have outgrown.

I am always outgrowing. I am even outgrowing myself, stretching to new heights. And somehow this body can make it seem coherent, growing and expanding to make more room for billowing muscle and elongated bone. Growth is a kind of crisis—but the body makes it bearable because it stretches so slowly.

But when we grow in the spirit, in our most-secret places, we are often growing beyond labels that have held us. We lose our sense of coherence, our sense of alignment, our sense of making sense. We are no longer who we thought we were. We are no longer what others expect of us. And this growth can be sudden and dramatic, gusting into our lives by the whims of the spirit. Growth in our self-understanding and self-expression is crisis.

I've outgrown so many arms, but I still need to be carried.

Will the world still hold me if its old stories can't? 

My notebook is filled with the questions—the invitations—the promises of maturity.

#growth #change #saturn return

[whoisrodell]

08/13/2022 The transformation of whoisrodell: Discovering the other side of identity

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For two years a question has been haunting me. Last night it visited me again when a woman asked me: "What made you go to theology school?"

But last night I gave an answer I'd never given before. I said something fresh and unrehearsed. 

I'm interested in transformation. Self-transformation. But also how we transform the world, and how the world transforms us. 

I'm interested in in the ideas, conversations, and spaces that give us new life. Transformation is what I explore in these writings. I write to document the daily details of my changing. 

whoisrodell is a transformation blog.

whoisrodell used to be a desperate search for identity. The question "Who is Rodell?" was sourced with the fear and insecurity that I would never find the answer.

But now, whoisrodell is a playful exploration of my various forms and expressions. Now, "Who is Rodell?" is an adventure through the mystical lands of my own life. 

whoisrodell is a mystery, not a problem. 

[whoisrodell]

08/12/2022 Writing is only writing: Lessons from a writer's depression

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Is there a place for pessimism or depression or despair in our creativity? Those moments when we're exiled from our activities?

When there's no joy. No spark. No reasons to keep our commitments to the craft.

At my worst, I start hiding from the pen and the page. I start to think of that place called "writing," as a place where self-judgments live. It's a thick swamp of my own unwillingness. We should talk about "writer's block" as "writer's despair" instead.

Despair pushes out all the possibility. It exposes the manufactured hopes. My mantras do nothing. My usual tricks flop and fail in the face of my creative numbness. 

Nothing is left but the bare substance of the work: the writing itself. The "just doing it." Without the romance, without the joy, without the reassurance that my writing is "good." All the glamour that I adorn the craft with gets stripped away. 

These pools of creative depression remind me that writing is only that: writing. Not searching for a creative high. Not meeting an invisible standard. 

The despair invites me to renew my commitment. Which is not talking myself out of depression, but rather settling my body down into position. I remember that creativity is not some abstract thing. 

Creativity is about a fleshy body of feelings, doing something silly and spontaneous. Something that no other body can do in the same way. (Note: Everything we do is a little silly and spontaneous).

I'm not saying I purposely stew in my depression, or that I find despair to be pleasant. 

Lapses of passion and motivation are inevitable, even when we deeply care for what we must do. This isn't about those things we actively dislike, or the work that is not genuine in us. 

But for those things we have committed ourselves to: in creativity, in relationships, in the highs and lows of life itself.

That pessimism or depression or despair need not be the end for us, and the end for our dreams, visions, and goals. That the frustrating challenge of "just doing it," is also our greatest hope and redemption. To do it without the baggage, without the glamour, without the romance. 

How fast our great expectations turn to great weights around our feet.

#writers block #mental health #discipline #motivation

[whoisrodell]

08/10/2022 The balanced life: The secret lessons of a balance addict

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What does it mean to feel balanced?

I started a two-week intensive class, which has thrown a wrench in my creative process. Especially the sharing part. For me, it's always the first to go.

Journaling to myself, I write about my need for "balance." I need to find some way to tend to all the things I must tend to: school, writing, reading, relationships, chores, etc. Equilibrium is the only way.

But then, a new suggestion comes to me. 

Maybe it is not balance that I want or need. Maybe I want imbalance. Maybe I want to tip the scales. Maybe I want to put all my energy into one direction, and sort the rest of my life out from there. 

But there's fear and guilt in living out this one-sidedness. Is it selfish of me? Will my passion envelope me? Will the various entities and relationships in my life make room for me in this new posture?

I can only push forward in faith. In a sort of recklessness. A recklessness that is unfamiliar to me. I have long been praying at the altar of balance. 

But balance is always under threat. If I am scurrying around in seek of an impossible balance, I will always be anxious. I will always be half-hearted in those things that matter to me. 

I am considering something new: Perhaps the world will adjust to my imbalancing. Maybe there is some naturally balancing force, but balance is not mine to make. 

Maybe it will be good for me to turn away from the balancing act. For me, it's nothing more than excuse I use to avoid risking myself for what I care about. It is a limitation I put on myself.

Balance feels safe and comfortable. But imbalance feels true. Maybe I need different states at different times.

And so I return to flexibility and fluidity. Learning to embrace all my various shapes and forms. The real work of a creative living.

#libra #relationships #work #writing

[whoisrodell]

08/06/22 Boxes and labels: The need for internet niche

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Labels and boxes frustrate me — but without them people cannot easily find me and recognize me. 

I am seen through many labels. People project assumptions onto my skin pigment. Others make stories out of my male body. 

But part of my creative living is undermining and exceeding these labels and identities. What's one more added to the list?

The question is not, "What box or label will I work inside of?" Instead, I ask, "What assumptions will I take on?"

And then: "How will I meet those assumptions and how will I disrupt them?" How will I be even more than what you thought I was?

That's the branding and marketing game I prefer to play. In the name of authenticity, I'll disrupt and surprise and exceed.

In the end, the boxes and labels might limit perception of me. But they will not limit my expression.

#branding #marketing #queer #identity

[whoisrodell]

08/05/2022 Practice versus pressure

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Practice before pressure. 

I don't expect any of these blog posts to go viral. I barely expect anyone to read many of these words. This blog doesn't need that kind of pressure.

But every post teaches me something. Every post is a rep in the gym of creation. I am sharpening my ability to think, translate, and share. I am reaping a value that isn't calculated in follower numbers and link clicks.

Pressure can make diamonds, but pressure can break bones. I prefer to take my pressure in small doses. 

I convert my pressure to practice: the pressure to craft the next post, to find the next connection, to share the next story. 

I don't need the earth-heavy pressure that smashes together diamonds. 

I only need the soft pressure of a reassuring hand, guiding me to the next step.

#daily blog #writing #creativity #practice #discipline #content creator

[whoisrodell]

08/04/2022 What is whoisrodell: Writing through questions of identity, purpose, and style

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This blog is only a beginning. This blog is only practice so far. It's important to have a place to practice and experiment. A place to try and fail. A place to get comfortable with leaps of faith. 

While this blog is serving that purpose, I would like to give this digital space a bit more direction. 

I arrive at this familiar crossroad every time I start blogging. The questions of: Who am I? Why am I doing this? What is my goal?

Last time, that question brought my creativity to a halt. This time, I'm writing through it and inviting you along for the journey. 

I am wandering through questions of identity, purpose, and style. This process involves remembering and retelling my story. Yesterday's "A philosopher's journey" was a beginning to that.

It seems to me that being a creative of any kind involves being fascinated with your own story. And even more, an excitement and curiosity about how your story weaves into the life of the world. 

It's thrilling for me to think about you reading the twists and turns of my thoughts. The details of my life. And that my honesty might touch yours through these words. 

I take responsibility for knowing my story, my mind, and my truth. So that I can make it available to you and whatever your journey is. 

My ultimate vision is that somehow these words inspire and support you in sharing what you have. I need what you have to offer, and I know someone else does too. 

You, my sweet reader, are a part of my wildest dreams.

#writing #content writing #creativity #writers block

[whoisrodell]

08/03/2022 A philosopher's journey: How I began my search for truth

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When I was sixteen, I wanted to be a philosopher. Even then, I was fascinated and troubled by the question of how to be a human being.  As a high school student, I had no idea what I was doing in my first philosophy class,  but I knew that the big questions sparked something in me.  What is the best way to love, to suffer, to strive?

But philosophy was not a perfect path. Philosophy seemed too abstract, too removed from the world, even if the ideas were thrilling to think about. I was sensing the temptation to fall deep into the world of thought. But I didn't want my work to be distant from real people with real lives. 

And so instead, I declared religious studies as my college concentration. Religious studies felt like a realm in which I could discuss the same big questions, but in a more concrete way. Religious studies centered the lived, on-the-ground experience of peoples. And religion itself intrigued me, even though I wasn't religious myself. 

But positioning myself in religious studies was making me into a different sort of philosopher. A philosopher of belief, community, and symbols. I thought a lot about how religious behavior manifested itself in non-religious spaces: from hip hop concerts to activist circles to astrology blogs. 

I was studying meaning-making. But eventually it was not enough for me to study meaning-making from afar. I needed meaning for myself. Halfway through college I was quietly spiraling into despair. The crisis of depression shifted my questions from the abstract and universal, to the urgent and personal. 

How do I live – How do I keep going in a world like this – How do I make a life worth living? 

I needed spiritual grounding. I had no protection from the pressures of the world. It became a deadly ultimatum: to conform to the bleak ways of the world, or to not be in the world at all. 

And so my studies became a search for meaning. A search for spiritual nourishment. A search for reasons to live.

I found the reasons I needed, but those bits are for another blog post. In fact, I use this blog to share what inspires me.

My main point is that this moment forever altered the way I orient myself to the world. I learned what the craving for meaning felt like. It is a feeling we often ignore and delay, as if a crisis of meaning is not anymore crisis than hunger or thirst. And I'm not sure if we truly own our bodies and minds until we own this deep craving as well.

This dark period of my life is when the search for meaning and truth came alive in me. 

I am a philosopher, almost ten years since my first philosophy dreams. But I am not the philosopher I imagined. I am not a philosopher of abstract systems, but a philosopher of my body and the spiritual hunger within me. A hunger that is dynamic and ever-changing. 

It is not my thinking that makes me a philosopher. It's my willingness to seek and share nourishment. It's my willingness to wade through the tension and traffic of human life. It's my willingness to live and someday die. And the dream of leaving behind a memory that is nourishing for those after me.

#philosophy #religion #depression #spirituality #storytelling #college

[whoisrodell]

08/02/2022 Untitled reflections on the present

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If I can remember the past – If I can imagine the future – What can I do with the present? 

When we remember the past, it comes to us incomplete. When we imagine the future, it comes to us uncertain and fragile. But the present arrives in its fullness without us having to call its name. 

We devote all our concern and attention to the past and future. We secretly enjoy them better. We secretly find them more fascinating and worthwhile. 

But the present is our most immediate friend and collaborator in all our endeavors. 

#time #psychology

[whoisrodell]

08/01/2022 We are more than our stories: Seeking renewal in a secular age

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How do you look at yourself?

We think we see the world exactly as it is. But often only see what we know. We see through the lens of our cultures, colored with all their unique limits and possibilities. 

We see the world in a complex web stories. The stories help us to deal with the world. Everything is cloaked in a blurry mirage, as we squint our eyes trying to get a glimpse of the truth. 

And so how do we look at ourselves? How do we live knowing that we cannot clarify ourselves? Our identities and relationships are always more detailed, more expansive than we can perceive.

And what in our culture can inspire that sense of more-ness? Where can we sit with the shortcomings of our stories, so that we may tell new ones? When we renew our stories, we renew ourselves.

The world is changing. There are useful sentiments that we can no longer access in the same ways, in the same spaces: faith, worthiness, renewal, and so on. How do we keep hold of these creative jewels, these jewels of human experience that have sustained our ancestors? 

As we bear the burden of breaking cycles, how do we also tend to the work of carrying torches forward?

#spirituality #atheism #psychology

[whoisrodell]

07/31/2022 Leo Season: Learning the language of fire

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August is beginning. The Sun and the Earth are busy doing the annual dance we call Leo.

The moment reminds us of fire. The way it shines and performs. The way it is ever-moving and alive.

These past two years have been a wilderness moment for me. I have been lost, and without a sense of "Who am I" or “Why am I doing this.” The wilderness saps away your energy, and the horizon goes on without end. There are no signs of life. Only the deadness of regret, the longing for home, and the aching thirst of a spiritual desert.

But this summer, after wrestling through the desert, I have felt a new spark. 

The wilderness is deadly, but intimate. There is no one but you and the voice of your desperate need for nourishment. That voice is the most important voice. It is the voice of life itself. It is the voice of the fire within us that demands us to feed it.

The desert is dry, and it withers everything in its bounds. But now, as I am huddled over this precious new spark, I see that it's the dry things that catch flame. 

The wilderness will not take everything from you. It will strip away everything but what you need: the voice of nourishment, the call of life, the spark that wants to be born.

As this summer ends, reacquaint yourself with your hunger for life. You and I are learning the language of fire.

#astrology #spirituality #nature spirituality #leo